Today, I had the opportunity to sit in on Mrs. Anderson's 8th grade physical education class. It was a change of scene for me that I was very excited about. In the past, I have only had the opportunity to observe and participate in elementary school settings so I was anxious to see the cognitive, social, and emotional differences between the two environments.
I immediately noticed that the boys and girls are very segregated. During their warm up and during the their game of "Capture the Flag" they rarely acknowledged that the opposite sex was present. However, both genders were equally competitive and worked hard to win.
One of the reasons I was especially excited to be observing a physical education class was because of the classroom management skills it requires to keep that many active adolescents on task. One thing I especially appreciated that Mrs. Anderson did was clearly state her expectations for the classes behavior and performance. She also provided them with an incentive: if there warm up exercise was up to her standard, they would be able to play capture the flag. Between her expectations statement and her incentive, she had a group of students ready to work. If a student did not seem to be thoroughly engaged, Mrs. Anderson would call out an exercise (5 push-ups, 3 burpees, 10 jumping jacks, etc.) for the class to do immediately. This let the students know they were not meeting Mrs. Anderson's expectations and it was time to increase their effort.
I am looking forward to the weeks to come so I can observe more of Mrs. Anderson's teaching techniques and classroom management protocols, as well as to gain a better understanding of the development of students in the middle school.
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